Harvard Open Data Project Predicts Palaniappan and Huesa Will Win UC Race

Based partly on its poll of the student body last week, the Harvard College Open Data Project has predicted Sruthi Palaniappan ’20 and Julia M. Huesa ’20 will win the 2018 Undergraduate Council presidential election. Voting for the election ends Thursday at noon.

The Open Data Project — a student-faculty collaboration that conducts statistical analyses of campus-related data sets — has correctly predicted the results of the past two UC presidential elections.

This year, three tickets are vying for the Council’s highest posts: Palaniappan and Huesa, Nadine M. Khoury ’20 and Arnav Agrawal ’20, and Daniel K. Ragheb ’20 and Samyra C. Miller ’21. A fourth ticket, John T. Ball ’20 and Sabrina Wu ’21, dropped out of the race but remain on the ballot and are included in the Open Data Project's findings.

The Open Data Project polled students over the course of five days last week on how they planned to vote. Of 264 respondents, roughly 52 percent said they planned to vote for Palaniappan and Huesa, 27 percent said they would vote for Ragheb and Miller, and 15 percent said they supported Khoury and Agrawal. Ball and Wu garnered the remaining 6 percent of respondent votes.

Huesa and Palaniappan led among students hailing from every class year, though their edge among freshmen — they earned 47 percent of first-place votes as compared to the 35 percent earned by Ragheb and Miller — was not as commanding as their lead among upperclassmen. Dasha Metropolitansky '22, Manasi Maheshwari '21, and Olivia K. Bryant ’21 worked on the analysis for the Open Data Project this year.

Given freshmen typically vote in higher numbers than do students in other class years, the Open Data Project weighted its polling data according to the assumption that freshmen would comprise roughly 43 percent of this year’s electorate, according to Bryant.

The weighted polling data leaves Palaniappan and Huesa still in the lead, though by a slightly smaller margin.

The Council’s newly adopted voting method could potentially induce some undergraduates to vote in a more strategic manner this year, Bryant said. Under the new system, each candidate receives a quantity of points corresponding to their ranking on the ballot — first-choice tickets receive one point, second-choice tickets receive 0.5 points, and third-choice tickets receive 0.33 points. This means that, hypothetically, a ticket with enough second-place votes could overcome a ticket with more first-place votes.

It is unclear, though, whether many students know about the new voting method and have adjusted their picks accordingly. Bryant said the Open Data Project's polling data indicated the new system has not registered with many voters.

“It’s clear that strategic voting is not happening,” she said.

The Open Data Project also analyzed each ticket’s social media presence by counting the number of Facebook likes on their official pages.

As of Sunday evening, Ragheb and Miller held a slight lead over Palaniappan and Huesa in that metric. Khoury and Agrawal trailed significantly.

Bryant said that, among the endorsements received by the candidates and analyzed by the Open Data Project, Palaniappan and Huesa held the advantage, garnering the endorsement of the Harvard Democrats and The Crimson's Editorial Board, among other groups. The Crimson's Editorial and News Boards do not coordinate coverage and maintain a strict separation in both staff and management.

In the past, the Open Data Project has also included endorsements given by UC representatives in its election analyses. Bryant said that, given the inconclusive predictive value of these endorsements, the group decided not to include them in this year’s iteration.

Official results for the election will be released Thursday at 10 p.m.

— Staff writer Jonah S. Berger can be reached at jonah.berger@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonahberger98.